Since June of 1985, the Naval Research Laboratory has been testing and developing a normal incidence, narrow beamwidth, high resolution seismic system that, when combined with a well designed and verified software package, can have the capability to accurately predict, in near real-time, acoustic impedance, sediment type, and a number of selected geotechnical properties of the upper several meters of the seafloor while in an underway survey mode. The system under test was, until recently, based on the Echo Strength Measuring System developed in the early 1980's by Honeywell ELAC of Kiel, Germany. A description of the ELAC system is found in D. N. Lambert, An Evaluation of the Honeywell ELAC Computerized Sediment Classificadon System, (Naval Ocean Research and Development Activity Report 169, August 1988). The original ELAC system consisted of a narrow beam, 15 kHz transducer, a high resolution analog paper recorder, and an 8085 microprocessor-controlled signal processor that quantitatively measured the return echo strength in ten adjustable time windows that correspond to depth intervals in the sediment. Either the first five or the last five of these echo strength lines were plotted on a paper seismogram. The relative spread of the lines away from a baseline indicated the strength of the echo return in each of the time windows. Wide separation between the lines denotes a strong acoustic return and a highly reflective sediment such as sand. Narrow separation between the lines indicates low reflectivity or soft muddy sediments. An experienced operator could subjectively predict the type of sediment below the transducer fairly well using this method. In order to quantify the acoustic return, ELAC, responsive to the Naval Research Laboratory, developed a near real time software program that computes an acoustic impedance profile of the sediment for each acoustic ping, using standard acoustic sediment theory as set out in C. S. Clay and H. Medwin, ACOUSTICAL OCEANOGRAPHY (John Wiley & Sons, 1977). From the acoustic impedance profile, several empirical relationships, developed by Hamilton, could be used to predict a number of sediment geotechnical properties in near real time while in a survey mode. See, e.g., E. L. Hamilton, Geoacoustic Modeling of the Sea Floor, 68 J. Acoustic Soc. Am. 1313 (No. 5, Nov. 1980). The software for that system was designed to provide a research tool, with broad capabilities that allowed the updating of Hamilton-type software databases as user knowledge improved. The system was difficult to operate and relatively user unfriendly. It was intended as a research tool, but was never intended to operate, nor could it operate, as a routine mapping or survey instrument. Its output, being a series of raw echo strengths, could not be readily, much less directly, correlated to ship position, or any of a number of other data needed for surveying. A strong need exists to have an easily operable, nearly automated, remote seafloor classification system that can routinely produce seafloor property maps for a multitude of applications.